You too can have obscenely thick thighs if you work as a human ox. Photograph: Orlando Kissner/AFP/Getty.

"We've all heard of youngsters who grew up in slums to become professional footballers," comments Roberta Farlow wearily, "but what is the greatest rags-to-riches story of them all? Which player has had the hardest upbringing in the history of football?"

It's a subjective matter, of course Roberta, but you could do worse than start with one of the world's greatest ever players, Diego Armando Maradona. Before becoming a legend, Diego grew up in the shanty town of Villa Fiorito, where he shared one room with seven siblings. Sanitation facilities were somewhat crude and one night, when still a toddler, Maradona fell into the family cesspit after losing his way in the dark. Fortunately his Uncle Cirilo, screaming "Diegito, keep your head above the shit", was on hand to rescue the youngster. "It wasn't easy, eh? Nothing was easy,' recalls Maradona with masterful understatement. One local resident remembers El Diego's formative years thus. "He had nothing else but football," says Jose Trotte. "He was not educated, he had no sophistication. He was shirtless and barefooted. He was just this street kid with a gift from God." The rest, as they say, is history.

Brazil also offers plenty of rags-to-riches tales. The 1999 European Footballer of the Year Rivaldo, for example, was so impoverished as a child that he lost his teeth to malnutrition and was dangerously thin and muscularly underdeveloped right into his teens. Then there's three-times Fifa World Player of the Year Ronaldo, whose first chance to escape the poverty-stricken streets of Rio disappeared when he couldn't raise the bus fare to attend a trial with Flamengo. Real Madrid team-mate Roberto Carlos was also reared far from the luxury he now basks in. According to John Carlin in this article, the free-shooting left-back developed his inordinately thick thighs by "working as a sort of human ox, spending hour after hour in the fields alongside his father pushing or pulling outrageously heavy pieces of farm machinery".

It's also worth mentioning Portsmouth forward Lomana LuaLua, who arrived in Britain with his father at the age of nine as an asylum seeker from the Democratic Republic of Congo (then Zaire). Bordeaux midfielder Rio Mavuba is another former asylum seeker to become a professional footballer. Rio's dad, Mafuila Mavuba, was part of the Zaire squad at the 1974 World Cup and later went to live in Angola, where he disappeared during the civil war and was presumed killed. After his mother fled, Rio was born on a refugee boat off the coast of West Africa en route to France, whom Rio hopes to represent at this summer's World Cup.

Arsenal full-back Lauren is another who had a narrow escape. His father Valentin Bisan-Etame was a prominent politician in Equatorial Guinea during the reign (1968-79) of psychotic dictator Francisco Macias Nguema. In 1977, Valentin took the noble but potentially fatal decision to oppose Nguema's widespread killings and theft and, for his troubles, was imprisoned and sentenced to death. An uncle in the army helped Valentin, several of his kids and his heavily-pregnant wife escape to Cameroon, where Lauren was born. "If our family hadn't escaped, I probably wouldn't have been born," surmises Lauren. "We lived in Cameroon until I was three years old, and after that we went to Spain, because Guinea was a Spanish colony." He grew up in Montequinto, a rough part of Seville, with his parents and 14 brothers.

Fulham forward Collins John's early life was no bed of roses either. His father was murdered by guerrillas in Liberia in 1991, when John was just six. Collins, his mother and younger brothers lived in constant fear that they would suffer the same fate. They were also desperately poor. "I had nothing more than a pair of underpants," recalls the player. "We didn't have food every day. It was a real struggle because of the civil war." The family escaped Liberia two years later and, after living in a Rotterdam refugee camp for a further two years, were eventually given Dutch citizenship. Before making his Fulham debut, John told Dutch journalists how he planned to celebrate his first goal. "I think I'll run all around the pitch and reveal the words I will have written in black letters on a white vest underneath my shirt," he said. "It will read: 'For my past'. I'll do it for everything I have gone through, for all the suffering. But most of all I will do it for my dad.'"

Finally, for rags-to-riches-and-back-to-rags stories, it's hard to beat that of the late Brazilian legend Garrincha. Manuel Francisco dos Santos was born in Pau Grande, a British-owned town near Rio. Residents were effectively subjects of a British trading company who clothed and housed them and controlled every aspect of their lives. Like every other boy in the village, Garrincha began working in the local factory when he was 14, but football was to provide a way out for him - even though he had bow-shaped legs of unequal length. In his review of Ruy Castro's excellent biography, Triumph and Tragedy of Brazil's Forgotten Footballing Hero, Josh Lacey offers the following synopsis of Garrincha's life after that. "He lost his virginity to a goat, slept with hundreds of women and sired at least 14 children. When he played for the Brazilian national team in the 1950s and early 60s, he scored 34 goals and won the World Cup twice. He killed his mother-in-law in a car crash, then died of drink [aged 49, in 1983]."

WHO ELSE WAS I GOING TO PLAY FOR?

"Is it possible that Stefano Fiore, now playing at Fiorentina, is the only club player past or present to have his full surname in the team that he plays for?" wonders Tony McDonald.

After sifting through your numerous emails suggesting that former Wolfsburg manager Wolfgang Wolf was worthy of a mention, we finally got around to discovering that a number of players actually do share this honour. "The rather useful www.allfootballers.com reveals that both a Danny and a R. Bolton have played for Wanderers," says Tim Byrne, before adding, "Italian speakers will also note there's a reasonable case to be made for Mickael Marsiglia of Marseille."

"Can I suggest Fernando De Napoli, who starred with the Italian side alongside Maradona in the 1980s?" wonders Martin O'Sullivan aloud. Indeed you can, Martin. Interestingly, as James Mullaney notes, Messina striker Arturo Di Napoli has also plied his trade for the team during his career. "There's also one-time Falkirk striker Steve Kirk," he adds. "A fairly obvious one," notes Andy Holt, "but Colin West used to play for West Brom."

Any more for any more? "I know of one other example in the Bundesliga where this actually happened," writes Paddy Schwind. "German player Markus Münch used to play for Bayern München." And rounding off our list is Michael Lovelady, who explains that, "While watching Middlesbrough's recent Uefa Cup win against Basle, I noticed they had a player going by the name of Pape Malick Ba!"

YOUTH CLUBS

"We think that Inverness Caledonian Thistle are the newest team to play in a top-flight European league," claim Jim and Clare McDonald. "The France Football website appears to show that Fiorentina, recently re-formed, still trace their history back to the 1920s. Can anyone do better than Caley Thistle, who were formed in 1994?"

Fiorentina's is an interesting case, as they were re-established in August 2002 as Florentia Viola, having effectively ceased to exist just a matter of months earlier. By 2003 the club bought back the Fiorentina name and its trademark shirt design, rebranding as ACF Fiorentina. However, there are a host of other clubs who can match or better Caley's feat.

Newest of the lot, however, are FK Voždovac, based in Belgrade, and currently playing in the Serbia and Montenegro Meridian Superliga. The club was formed on June 28 2005 via a merger (like Inverness CT) between second-league side Voždovac and top-flight FK Železnik, who were struggling with financial problems at the time. The club hope to celebrate their inaugural season with a place in next season's Uefa Cup, as they currently lie third in the league table.

KNOWLEDGE ARCHIVE

"I could swear I heard a score recently - 16 September, 2003 to be precise - where the home team won 6-0 and where the aggregate score was six-all," said John Smith in 2003. "I think it was a League Cup match in Wales. Was I dreaming? And if not, is this the biggest two-leg comeback of them all?"

Alas, John was indeed dreaming. There was a first-round tie in which both legs finished 6-0. But sadly for Barry Town, Caersws were the only scorers both times, progressing on an aggregate score of 12-0. We did however manage to turn up a gem of a two-leg comeback from the Copa Libertadores in the late 1980s, in the hope that, like methadone to heroine addicts, your letdown wouldn't hit you quite so hard. It came courtesy of Daniel Windler, who shared the twisting tale with the world on rsssf.com.

In the first leg, Olympia had claimed a 2-0 home victory against Boca Juniors. In those days there was no away goals rule in the competition, so Boca needed to win by two goals to ensure at least penalties. Boca were a further 2-0 down by half time and it wasn't long before the night's scoreline became 3-1. At this point most of Argentina duly switched off their televisions and went back to carefully sculpting their moustaches, as you do.

"Well blow me down," said Daniel. "I've barely worked the gel into a suitable consistency and suddenly all these car horns start honking in the streets. Boca have only gone and scored four goals in 10 minutes and taken the game to penalties my son." Tragically, another twist was in store for the Argentinians, who lost the penalty shootout competition and were forced to sit through a repeat of the game the next day. Still, some fond memories for the Boca supporters. "Four goals in 10 minutes, in an international competition! I've never seen anything like it! You'd be hard pushed to find a comeback as good as this one."

As for the greatest comeback in a single game, you'd do well to beat Charlton's incredible effort of coming from 5-1 down against Huddersfield in 1957 to win 7-6. We actually covered this before in The Knowledge, click here for more details.

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Can you help?

"With all the talk of touts at the World Cup, do you know what is the largest sum ever paid for a ticket to a football match?" asks Frank Garner.

"Manchester United were 18 points behind Chelsea at the start of March, albeit with games in hand," writes Samuel Roberts. "What is the biggest lead to have ever been overhauled to win a title?"

"Googling away another dull day at work, I noticed that Internazionale have no less than eight Argentina internationals in their squad (Burdisso, Samuel, Zanetti, Cambiasso, Kily Gonzalez, Solari, Veron and Julio Cruz)," writes Tom Fowler. "Are there any other clubs which have such a concentration of non-domestic international players?"